Aside from being one of the most fundamental physiological needs of humanity, food and eating is rapidly gaining recognition as an essential cultural element and attraction offered by tourist destinations.

Consuming local cuisine can enhance or even be a central element of the overall visitor experience. The idea that food and culture are inherently linked has been highlighted by the UNWTO and destinations are increasingly recognising the significance of gastronomy in stimulating sustainable economic development at local, regional and national levels.

Gastronomy is now a pivotal feature of the overall tourist experience, which has led to destination management quite literally catering their marketing and product development strategies accordingly. Food tourism can stimulate repeat visits to destinations in attempt to replicate tourists' previous culinary experiences as well as inspire travel to new places in search of distinctive and enticing flavours unfamiliar or otherwise different.

Tourists' growing love for local produce means destinations can utilise their unique cultural heritage to appeal to travellers looking "to feel part of their destination through its flavours", says the UNWTO; resulting in the conservation and sustainability of cultural attributes characteristic to a destination. By 'tasting a place', tourists are able to expand their understanding of food as well as immersing themselves into another culture.

Gelato in Italy

Through the act of consumption, tourists can embed themselves in a multi-sensory journey through experiencing first-hand something special and unusual - not only taste but sight, sound, scent and touch! Food and eating goes beyond being enjoyable and necessary sustenance in tourism, where it is often considered "a marker of social distinction" and a significant way to encounter and experience other cultures through the domain of food.

However, although food experiences form an integral and pleasurable component of many tourists' travel itineraries, others see eating as a minor feature of their overall travel experience; a necessity purely to satisfy hunger whilst they explore other prominent destination interests.

Since food began to appear on UNESCO World Heritage Lists in 2010 it has developed into an essential motivator for many tourists' travel to particular destinations to experience the 'spirit' of a place; a form of cultural heritage where elements of difference away from normality are sought.

Frances checking Tagliatelli al Ragu in Bologna

Tourism is a way of engaging with diversity in much the same way as sampling 'foreign' cuisine is a way of really experiencing it. If a typical tourist experience involves partial engagement of the senses, such as through sightseeing; culinary tourism offers a far deeper level of experience. Using more than simply vision, as is the predominant sense within regular tourism, the integration of smell, touch and taste through food engages visitors' active participation in the whole experience rather than just being bystanders. As a culinary tourist, a change in usual consumption habits is not so much to satiate hunger as it is to experience other cultures and ways of being.

Buying fresh home grown green figs

Falling on the lower end of today's emerging 'Food tourist' spectrum are those who have little or no interest in food during their travels. For these 'regular' tourists, their food-related visits may include dining at a familiar restaurant because they must eat; or visiting a market or store because they consider it something different to do. Their primary reasons to travel do not usually incorporate specialist or local delicacies - any special culinary experiences they partake in are usually impromptu.

Today's growing market are the 'Culinary Tourists' - those whose major motivation for travel to a particular destination is for the food and beverages, or food-related events.

And at the peak of the foodie scale are the 'Gastronomic Tourists', where food and food-related activities are deemed a form of 'serious leisure' and where food is very much an attraction in its own right. For these tourists, a destination's cuisine is of greatest priority in the overall quality of their touristic experience.

Insalata di polpo

Of course, consumption is integral to the full tourism experience. Not only the physical consumption of food but also the consumption of sights and sounds which reflects the overall character and 'taste' of a place.

Tourists are usually influenced to travel by 'push and pull' factors. Push factors result from demand and are the cause behind tourists' travel to destinations, whereas pull factors consist more of external resources such as distinctive cultural and natural attractions inherent to a destination. According to the UNWTO, cuisine can provide tourists access to the historical and cultural heritage of destinations. In consuming food through tasting, experiencing and purchasing; culture is approached in a more experiential and participatory way.

Since food can incorporate so much more than just the act of its consumption, culinary tourism can also encompass an exploration of other aspects of food systems. The new can be mixed with the old, such as obtaining well-known ingredients from new places; and the exotic can be mixed with the familiar, for instance by adding or substituting different ingredients to dishes. In addition, physical travel is no longer an essential component for being a culinary tourist - simply by visiting a restaurant serving 'different' cuisine, without the need to cross any borders, can signify culinary tourist motives.

Food has the capacity to transcend being a basic yet fundamental human requirement into a cultural attraction, and a quintessential element of both tourism production and consumption.

Checking out Tiramisu

The production of distinctive and local food has developed into an essential component of a destination's attributes and basis for tourist experiences, creating invaluable opportunities for local and sustainable tourism. More people are now able to experience ethnic or otherwise 'foreign' foods without leaving their homes and, as mentioned above, by dining out or visiting such places one may be considered a culinary tourist just as much as those physically travelling to new destinations.Eating can be considered a social act and a way in which to satiate curiosity; through a willingness to experience the cultural worlds of other people and a desire to learn about other experiences and ways of life.

Food is a powerful medium through which other cultures can be discovered, where identity, relationships, ideologies, and emotions can be communicated, and the fulfilment of basic physical needs can be met. However, there is another and less oft-explored component of food in tourism which represents the phobic tendencies of tourists; those who are fundamentally afraid of the unknown in terms of new and unfamiliar foods. It is thus through food that the capacity of expanding cultural understandings and touristic encounters can be met.

It is important therefore to think about culinary tourism from the varying perspectives of tourists and the ways in which food can support and enhance sustainable tourism. In this way; "tourism is in the eye of the beholder - or on the tongue of the taster".

The key to sustainable tourism is marketing. How can it be sustainable, beneficial or healthy when it's a numbers game - a rush to the lowest price?

Tourism needs to benefit your destination, or it simply can't be sustainable in any sense of the word.

If you want to live in, and have the massive benefits of, a quality destination you need to have quality visitors enjoying quality experiences. And these visitors need to buy into your, and your community's attitudes.

Why not think about your destination as a party where you invite the guests you want. You'll naturally avoid inviting cheapskate gatecrashers - after all it's your destination, it's your party.

And it can be a big party too - there is a wide range of people in your community who will benefit from the arrival of lovely visitors.

Of course your hotels and guesthouses and B&Bs will benefit from the right sorts of people and your restaurants, bars, cafes, teashops and coffee shops. But also your banks and insurance companies, your schools of every sort (who naturally want good jobs for their students), your community in general will love the idea that there are nice people visiting.

All of these will benefit more if you target the right visitors or less if you don't define what types of tourists you want.

Of course we all want nice, gentle, interesting, curious tourists that will care for our destination, but just how do we get enough of them to make a real difference to our destination? Here is just one example -

Edinburgh has its faults but pretty much everybody that visits it loves the city and, in the main, Edinburgh's inhabitants love their visitors too. And they provide a good, sustainable, living.

Nobody yet moans seriously about overtourism in Edinburgh. Why? Because Edinburgh has become a party city that designs its parties principally to fulfil the needs and desires of its own residents - the Edinburgh Music Festival, the amazing Fringe with over 3,000 shows, the Book Festival, Hogmanay and more are all designed firstly with residents' desires in mind. Hence it's not "for them" it's "for us" and guest visitors are more than welcome.

So building tourism initiatives with residents in mind is key to sustainable tourism marketing. That's the starting point.

Destination communities need tourism to fulfil their needs first- not tour operators, not OTAs, not cruise companies, not tourists after the cheapest deal.

So destination marketing initiatives need to be designed at the very beginning to create a place that's good to live in - and a place that's great to visit.

SustainableTourism02 will deal with this subject in depth and offer a range of sustainable destination marketing solutions.

Before all this goes too far maybe travel agents and tour operators and the countless tourism providers in the over 100,000 destinations should consider this one word: ‘Disintermediation’

Once upon a time there were just beautiful untouched virginal destinations and brave tourists who wished to visit them and enjoy their charms. They returned fulfilled and raving about the things they’d done and seen.

Just fifty years ago there were still thousands of virgin destinations, secluded in their seaside or mountain homes. In the swinging sixties there was just a trickle of tourism – less than 100 million international travellers a year.

Gradually people around the world got hooked on their tourism ‘fix’ and regarded it as the ultimate yearly escape and a badge of being middle class. The trickle became a flood and within a few short years from now, that 100 million will become 2000 million.

And that’s great – tourism allows hundreds of millions of middle-class people to get out of their surroundings for a short period of time and spend their money somewhere else, transferring wealth, generating employment and the possibility of communication, plus a bit more understanding, maybe.

And as an industry was rising to generate and fulfil this demand it was natural that all these potential tourists would look to offers in their own markets to fulfil their own dreams in their own languages. So, big tour operators selected destinations and accommodation, packaged them with transportation and sold the packages in the markets where the potential tourists lived. Although this was quite profitable it required investment in marketing so naturally the tour operators regarded the tourists as ‘theirs’ – after all they had made the marketing investment to acquire them and competed with other organisations to keep them.

In the 1960’s American Airlines created SABRE (Semi-automatic Booking and Reservations Environment) which was what it said – a way to book bits of holidays; air travel, accommodation, car hire etc online. They floated this off, collected the money and it spawned a bunch of global competitors. What were then known as Online Travel Agents.

And resulted in a globally-connected bunch of booking agencies low on staff but high on tech and finance which, in today’s age of technological barons, seek, like Google and Facebook, to buy market dominance through massive investment.

Once they own the market there will be infinite possibilities to make money and get power as we’ve already seen.

When any one of these financial behemoths like Tripadvisor, Booking Holdings (Booking.com, Hotels.com etc), or Airbnb achieve the ability to provide a ‘One Stop Holiday Shop’ combining all the tourists’ destination requirements in one hit they will win a massive prize – the opportunity to get a monopolistic stranglehold on the travel and tourism industry.

But there are about 100,000 elements that are not included in this equation – destination communities and their appointed representatives, politicians etc.

It may well be that the OTAs can pick off parts of destinations – like Booking.com has with accommodation – and it may well be that Booking.com will be happy with the fact that they own a massive market share and now contribute significantly to Booking Holdings’ $100+ billion market capitalisation. But even though it is now the world’s 7th biggest internet group by revenue, shareholders always demand more.

Before all this goes too far maybe travel agents and tour operators and the countless tourism providers in the over 100,000 destinations should consider this one word: ‘Disintermediation’

And a question: “Who really are global tourism’s most potent brands?”

Travel intermediaries have established algorithm-driven money oil wells in destinations spurting at least a trillion dollars a year direct to their investors and it doesn’t even touch the sides.

Maybe it’s time for a bit of disintermediation by the most powerful brands in tourism to gain a trillion dollar prize which they may think is rightfully theirs. Maybe this money and this expertise could then be used to assist destination development rather than buy super yachts!

It’s a tough business and the industry depends on sustainable profits and sustainable tech innovation for sustainable development and to survive in a fast-changing world.

Designed to be a great asset for everybody working in the travel and tourism industry – travel agents and tour operators can benefit greatly from Sustainable Tourism 0.2.

Sustainable Tourism 0.2 is to be published on World Tourism Day/Global Green Destinations Day. It is the new successor to the Sustainable Tourism Report - complex sustainability subjects made simple and without any bureaucratic bias - it is totally independent, innovative and well informed.

Over the last 15 years the Sustainable Tourism Report has spotted the trends and revealed the 'Sharing Economy', Tourism Overcrowding, Tourism Greenwash, and many other key tourism issues - before they took hold. One of the next massive issues will be Smart Tourism and the opportunities for everyone will be fully revealed. The opportunities for everyone in the industry – Travel agents and tour operators, OTAs, transport companies, young people learning about tourism in higher education courses, and all those partners in destinations.

Sustainable Tourism 0.2 will cover:

Destinations - is this where the power will be held? Dozens of case studies from all over the world will show how smart destinations are delivering sustainable benefits for their communities - and for visitors.

Travel Agents and Tour Operators, Online Travel Agents and Tour Operators, Transportation companies, land, sea,air - the story so far and the opportunities on the table.

Climate change - is it an existential threat or a massive opportunity or both? Will carbon offsets come back into fashion and where will airline emissions (currently what make sustainable tourism an oxymoron) take us and ICAO?

Politics & tourism - is this an opportunity for destinations to maximise their power and squeeze the maximum benefits out of tourism for their voters - it is after all

Waste - plastic, effluent, water, power - will these be the biggest and most publicised destination issues

Technology - OTAs, visitor management, virtual tourism - technology has the power to completely change tourism management in destinations - so far we have seen the power of the OTAs to dominate hotel marketing - what's next?

Plus Peace & tourism - has it all become a forlorn dream? Or will it be revitalised? Art & tourism - can it deliver massive value-added? Food and tourism - possibly the most sustainable issue of them all.

Plus - YOUR QUESTION. If you feel that something sustainable and important is not being covered you'll have an opportunity to do so.

The report is specifically created to be of use to: Tourism Ministers, Destination Managers, Travel and Tourism Executives, Higher Education Organisations with tourism courses.